Out of Prison, onto the Greyhound

When I was at a Greyhound station recently, a group of passengers stood out. They wore identical plain white T-shirts adorned only with a small ID number. They carried their belongings in brown paper bags. Standing next to them were a couple state police officers.

Turns out, they were former prisoners just released that day. And they happily told me they were going home, with Greyhound tickets provided by the state.

Once you think about it, it makes sense that state governments would use Greyhound or other bus lines to transport released prisoners home. Long-distance buses are cheap, and they go just about everywhere in the country. They are also low-hassle. Dropping off prisoners at an airport would be a logistical nightmare, with all the check points and gates. With a bus station, the officers can just pull up, let their charges out, and wait for them to get on the bus. In the last three years, about 84,600 released federal inmates have traveled home or to a halfway house in this way, according to a Budget Travel report.

These passengers who have completed their jail time are not controversial. They have paid their debt to society and are normal citizens again. But another group of bus riders is quite controversial.

It has recently surfaced that prisoners who have not yet finished their sentences are also riding Greyhound. About 5,000 minimum-security federal prisoners have traveled between prisons via Greyhound and other bus lines in the last three years, Budget Travel reported in June. The story was first uncovered by investigative reporters at the Dallas/Ft. Worth TV station WFAA.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons has been sending these inmates unescorted because it says escorts would be an unnecessary cost for taxpayers. Only non-violent, minimum-risk offenders are sent between prisons this way. Maximum-security offenders are not transported between prisons by commercial bus, and are always escorted by armed officers.

Naturally, that was not a big consolation to bus owners. They wrote in complaint, but so far the practice has not been changed.

This revelation could also be unsettling to passengers who have no idea who the guy sitting next to them is. But passengers should not necessarily be more worried about these minimum-risk offenders than they are about any other passenger around them. These inmates are not violent, and no incidents have shown them to be a danger to fellow passengers.

One worry-for law enforcement officials-is the possibility of inmates in transit escaping. It is rare: fewer than 1 in 500 inmates being transferred without escort have absconded, according to the Associated Press. But some do get away. From October 2003 to September 2005, 77 inmates absconded mid transit, and 19 were never recaptured.

To the Federal Bureau of Prisons, this number is good enough to justify the cost savings of transporting prisoners unescorted by commercial bus. The bus companies and some passengers disagree.

What do you think? Should the federal government send inmates between prisons on Greyhound and other buses?

Sources:
First-hand interviews.
"Federal prisoners are transported via public bus lines," Budget Travel, June 10, 2009.
"Greyhound wants to stop inmate transfers on buses," The Associated Press, May 23, 2009.